Category Archives: Visual art

by | January 25, 2010 · 12:14 pm

Operas as graphic novels

Graphic novel_0002

With their dramatic action and vivid characters, operas have inspired a number of graphic novels, including books by P. Craig Russell and a series (now out of print) produced in collaboration with England’s Royal Opera House. The most noteworthy examples of this genre are not just illustrations of libretti; they are autonomous works of art in the graphic novel tradition.

Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is particularly suited to the treatment it receives in The ring of the Niebelung by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane; set in a mythological time, with illustrious characters who can alter their physical forms, defy gravity, and survive without oxygen, it fits naturally into the medium’s world of fantasy and superheroes.

In some cases this drammata in pittura brings a powerful new dimension to Wagner’s drammata in musica—for example, the action that the audience must imagine during the Vorspiel of Die Walküre is fully depicted over the course of four textless pages. The cycle was first published in four installments by DC Comics.

Above, the opening of Act II of Die Walküre (click to enlarge); below, part of the 2011 production by the Metropolitan Opera.

Related article: The Ring recast

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Filed under Dramatic arts, Opera, Publication types, Romantic era, Visual art

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by | January 19, 2010 · 1:42 pm

Postcards

Postcards are a form of music iconography that provides clues about reception. Their subjects have included popular musicians, groups, and composers and their works.

The 1909 Austro-Hungarian postcard reproduced above wryly depicts two aspects of Franz Liszt’s persona: the devout abbé of his later years and—if you look closely—the libertine of his scandalous youth. (Click to enlarge.)

Related article: Schubert deltiography

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Filed under Humor, Iconography, Reception, Romantic era

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by | January 9, 2010 · 8:44 pm

Multifunctioning publications

Ethnomusicological monographs are often published with transcriptions, photographs, and recordings; the printed texts present the primary information, while the other materials serve a secondary, supporting role. For ethnographic recordings, these functions are reversed: The recordings themselves are the primary concern, and the other materials fill in contextual or technical information.

Some publications occupy the border between these two types, where neither the printed texts nor the other materials can be definitively deemed secondary. The raga guide: A survey of 74 Hindustani ragas, published by Nimbus in 1999, is an example of such a multifunctioning publication. On its four CDs, each rāga is portrayed in a three- to six-minute rendition by a top-ranking performer; this is arguably the primary information, and RILM classified the publication as a sound recording. But the 196-page book in the package is hard to consider merely supportive—it includes analytical and historical notes for each rāga and its performance, including its basic structures shown in both Western and Indian sargam notation; full transcriptions of the ālāp (introductory) sections of each recording; and 40 full-color reproductions of rāgamālā paintings

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Filed under Asia, Ethnomusicology, Iconography, Publication types, Theory

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by | January 6, 2010 · 7:15 pm

Caricature

Caricature is a type of iconography that involves distorting the features of recognizable people to exaggerate some aspect of their demeanor.

Opinions differ regarding the term’s applicability to other than real-life subjects; for example, Walt Disney considered his animated animals to be caricatures because in creating them he blended animal features with human ones, an inversion of the practice of caricaturing people by merging their features with those of animals.

In the caricature reproduced above by Albert Douat (1847–92, signed with the pseudonym J. Blass), Liszt consoles Wagner over the Parisian reception of Tannhäuser in 1861 and Lohengrin in 1891; both productions were disrupted by elements hostile to the composer. Liszt’s imposing stature and paternal attitude—particularly apt since by the time the drawing was produced he was Wagner’s father-in-law—contrasts with the dejected, little-boy look of the creator of Gesamtkunstwerk.

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Filed under Humor, Iconography, Reception, Romantic era

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by | December 22, 2009 · 12:33 pm

Trade cards

Trade cards, which disseminate advertising by fostering cartophilia, have been issued since the early nineteenth century. Some are sources for music iconography, depicting musicians, composers, or dramatic works; those issued by instrument makers often depict their wares in attractive settings.

The card shown above (recto and verso) is an example of the latter, printed for the Estey Organ Company. Behind the group of music lovers, two children gaze at the Estey factory, which is now a museum. The company revolutionized musical life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by using marketing techniques like this card to place Estey organs in homes and institutions throughout the world.

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by | December 13, 2009 · 2:49 pm

Technical drawings

Technical drawings of instruments are of interest to instrument builders, organologists, and iconographers—they may also be useful for researchers working on performance practice, theory, or aesthetics. Technical drawings may also be found as freestanding publications issued by museums and collections to encourage reconstructions of the historical instruments that they own.

This example from Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia Universalis (1650) shows the inner workings of a claviorganum, which Michael Praetorius described in his Syntagma musicum.II: De organographia (1619) as a keyboard instrument in which strings and pipes “sound together to produce a pleasing sound”.

Below, a claviorganum in action.

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Filed under Baroque era, Iconography, Instruments, Publication types

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by | December 8, 2009 · 2:47 pm

Music on money

Like postage stamps, musical subjects depicted on money represent a type of iconography that is controlled by governmental organizations; their didactic goals are minimal, and their political role is paramount. Most often they involve the celebration of a national composer whose work embodied and enacted a national character—but their symbolism occasionally misfires.

For example, the above Romanian  50,000 lei banknote pictures George Enescu on the front alongside some recognizable musical images, but the depiction of a Bucegi-Mountains rock formation known in Romania as The Sphinx, which appears to be a reference to the character of the Sphinx in the composer’s opera Oedipe, was judged to be sufficiently puzzling to merit a redesign omitting the image.

This according to “Music on money: State legitimation and cultural representation” by Marin Marian-Bălaşa (Music in art XXVIII 1–2, pp. 173–189.

Related article: Enescu and makam

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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Iconography

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by | November 16, 2009 · 3:12 pm

Album covers

fela-zombie

Record album covers comprise a genre of music iconography that shows how musicians wish to be perceived—or how their producers wish them to be perceived. This type of iconography makes no claim to objectivity; rather, it explicitly presents images meant to arouse specific associations with the recorded music inside.

For example, the cover of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s 1977 album Zombie shows him brightly dressed, singing and gesturing defiantly, facing images of Nigerian soldiers: the zombies of the scathing title song, which satirizes these enforcers of the military government. The singer appears as a vibrant, strong leader, while the soldiers are depicted in a jagged, grey collage—as dehumanized and sinister as the zombies of horror fiction.

Below, Sahr Ngaujah and the cast of Fela! perform Zombie on Broadway.

Click here for more on music iconography.

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Filed under Africa, Iconography, Politics, Popular music

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by | November 2, 2009 · 6:22 pm

Rāgamālā paintings

Bhairavi

Rāgamālā painting is a form of iconography that arose around 1600 in northern India.

These visual depictions of rāgas involve the various extramusical associations that theorists have assigned to them; for example, this visualization of the Hindustani rāg bhairavī from about 1610 depicts women worshiping at a shrine to Śiva, embodying the rāga’s association with both Śiva and feminine energy, and evoking the colors of its traditional early-morning context.

Below, the śahnāī player Bismillāh Khān (1915–2006) renders rāg bhairavī.

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by | October 26, 2009 · 7:38 pm

Postage stamps

Postage stamps are singular sources for music iconography. Since these images comprise officially sanctioned national and international recognition, they provide windows on what governments and constituencies in various cultures and at various times have deemed worthy of celebration.

For example, the South Indian magazine Sruti regularly features philatelic reports on stamps issued by the Indian Department of Posts; these include an impressive number of commemorations of composers and performers from India’s classical Karnatak and Hindustani traditions. The stamp pictured above was issued to honor the śahnāī player Bismillāh Khān (1915–2006) on 21 August 2008.

Below, the music of Ghanaian postal workers canceling stamps.

Related article: Music stamps redux

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